A splendid woman, member of the church which assumed my salary, had given me two beautiful wolf robes. I was lying in the heavier one. I delivered the other to Mrs. Strong. "Sell it for me," I requested. "You ought to get fifty or sixty dollars for it." A week passed--then another. Mrs. Strong reported she "was holding the robe for a higher price." The crisis I had dreaded had arrived. My money was gone. I had none to meet next Monday's payment. "Sell the robe for what it will bring," I directed Mrs. Strong. "I must have the money." "I'll sell it on Saturday," she promised. Monday morning Mrs. Strong marched in with a large canvas money-bag in her hand. With Mrs. Perrigo's assistance she counted out the money, which was mostly in silver coins. Then she wrote in large figures, "$158.50," and pinned the paper on the wall by my head. "Where on earth did you get that money?" I cried. "Why, for the robe, of course." "You never got all that for it." "Yes, I did," she affirmed. Then the truth dawned upon me. "Mrs. Strong!" I exclaimed, "you raffled the robe!" "Yes," she laughed. "What are you going to do about it?" Then she explained. Finding it impossible to get a fair price for the fur blanket she and Bunch-grass Bill had laid their heads together. They knew that I would not consent to a raffle, so they kept the matter quiet. Bill displayed the robe in front of his saloon. Shares were offered at fifty cents each. My lady friends of the mission sold tickets. Bill bought fifty and others of my friends did almost as well. Their purpose if they won the robe was to give it back to me. What could I do? To rebuke their kindly deception would be ungracious indeed. With brimming eyes I thanked my friends, and Mrs. Perrigo got her money. But the greatest of Bunch-grass Bill's many acts of kindness towards me remains to be told. As Dr. Davy had said from the first, mine was "a bad case." I had seven and a half weeks of high fever before it broke, whereas the usual limit of fever was three weeks. I reached the extreme of emaciation and weakness. I could hardly lift my hand. When they bundled me in a blanket like a baby and hung me on the hook of a big steelyard I weighed sixty pounds! I was long in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and reached its utmost boundary, until the very waters of the dark river lapped my feet. "Well, Bill," said Dr. Davy with a sigh, as he was returning one morning from his call upon me, and stopped, as was his custom, to report to the "Beach Saloon," "I'm afraid it's about over. I don't think Dr. Young can last much longer. He can retain nothing on his stomach. We've tried all the brands of condensed milk in the camp to no avail. Everything comes up the instant it is swallowed. There are many internal complications, and he may go off any hour in one of those deathly convulsive chills."